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9.30.2009

There are A LOT of things on the house that are a bigger priority than putting my art room together, but Chris is being so wonderful and putting it on top of the list. I am SO thankful. Now, there will be a place in the house I can go and have alone time and work on art projects, I am SO excited.

For the last few days I've been planning and purchasing to get the room going. I HAD bought a rug, but stupid Overstock.com sold a product they didn't actually HAVE, so now I am rugless. I had planned the room around it, so now I need to get new paint color ideas and return the fabric I had bought for the curtains. Grrrr.

We were looking for a futon for the room (both as seating in case Chris - or anyone else - comes in to hang out, and as an extra bed in case we have houseguests) and I was looking on craigslist. I checked out Ikea and found a GREAT one for $150, which is basically what it would cost to get a used one on craigs in decent shape.

Also at Ikea I found 2 good table tops (for $45 total!)

Chris will build and attach the legs. I needed two tables and the legs were $15 EACH!

I also got two bar stools (in case I have an art date) for $40! I really like that they have a back

I also got a ceiling fan :( I am NOT a fan of ceiling fans (I find them incredibly ugly), but because the room has south and west facing windows, it gets AWESOME sunlight, and therefor gets pretty hot. So I looked around for the least offensive one to cool the room down

It was only $58 too, which was great because apparently ceiling fans are pretty expensive. It doesn't give off the GREATEST light, so we'll install recessed lights in each of the four corners of the room.

This morning I also drew up plans for the modular shelf that Chris will build for me!

9.28.2009

Friday night working the De La Salle football game was a lot of fun. I was afraid I wasn't going to know anyone, but a few of the guys I work with at the A's were there, and a guy I'll be an intern with at the Warriors was there too, so it was fun. Working ESPN games is GREAT, the equipment is really good and they give you food before AND after the game. Working the parabolic microphone was really cool. I was this person:

The shape of the plastic allows for sound to get caught and amplified by the center microphone really well. These people catch the sound on the field that you hear on TV. If I pointed it really well I could hear what the coaches on the opposite side of the field were saying, it was pretty awesome. Hard though. The mic isn't really very heavy, but holding it in that position for about 3 1/2 hours got a little tiring.

There was a scary moment in the third quarter when a player on the opposing team got hit pretty bad and they thought he might be paralyzed :( It happened on my side of the field, so I tried really hard to point the microphone so I could hear what the paramedic crew was saying. But they were talking low and into the ground, so it was really hard. Eventually, I heard that the player got knocked unconscious and couldn't feel anything on his body. He lay motionless on the ground for quite sometime and everyone started getting really scared and nervous. About 15 minutes later I saw his arm and feet move a little and he had regained movement, so that was great to see. They called in an ambulance, put his neck in a brace, and got him to the hospital. I've tried to look online to see if he's alright, but I haven't found anything. I guess in this case, no news is good news.

Saturday and Sunday it was back to work. We wanted to work on getting the side deck finished and the railing on both of them complete, but Home Depot messed up on our order (LONG story) and so we didn't get a chance to put the railing up. Hard work on both days got the side deck nearly complete though!

So, like the back deck, all that's waiting on this one is to assemble the railing and install it. But, now we can exit out the side door! Now, when we have to take out the trash we don't have to walk all the way to the back door, exit, then walk all the way around to the side of the house where the trash is. It's VERY exciting. And, for the first time since we moved in, we can exit out of each of our four doors, woo-hoo!

Today I'll run some errands, do some general clean-up stuff, and make more progress on getting things in order so Chris and I can started on putting together my art room! I am VERY excited for this. I need to get a light, work table, sewing table, rug, two stools, a chair, curtain fabric, wall paint color, and design the modular shelving unit that Chris will build for me. Having an art room is something I cannot wait for! :)

9.24.2009

No, this is not dedicated to the Florida Gators QB (who do you think I am???), but to our neighbor's yellow cat

We frequently find Tebow lounging in our front yard when we get home. The grass has died and we've been too lazy (and busy) to do anything about the frontyard landscaping, so we're pretty convinced he enjoys it because he is camoflauged. A lot of the time when I get home he runs to me to pet him and usually runs after me and comes into the house

Tonight, he's been hanging out with me for about 30 minutes, wandering, sniffing, rubbing on everything and longingly looking up at me to pet him

I would enjoy having a kitty as a pet myself, but with all the construction and projects, it wouldn't be a great idea, so for the time being, he's a pretty good friendly neighborhood cat

9.23.2009

We got back from Boston yesterday, and we had a really great time visiting, discovering, lounging, concerting (not a word, oh well).

Friday

Travel day, but still exciting. The last time I flew out of SF was probably when I went to Chile and Argentina with my friend's family when I was 14. Whenever I visited my dad and Wendy in TX I would always fly out of Oakland and San Jose, so I've gotten used to never flying out of SF. When my dad booked our flights there were no more coupon flights left flying out of Oakland, so we had to fly out of SF and arrive home in Oakland. I remember talking about it, but then TOTALLY forgot. So Clarke was very nice and drove us to the Oakland Airport on Friday because that's where I told him we were flying out of. He droped us off, we walked inside and I pulled out our boarding passes (that I printed the day before but never looked at, obviously). I freeze, WE'RE FLYING OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO. Chris thought I was joking at first. So I called Clarke, but his phone was off, AHHH! I remembered that on Friday's Adam works from home so I frantically called him and he RUSHED over to get us, and when he got there our flight was leaving in 65 minutes. He tried to weave in and out of traffic as much as possible and got us there 25 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave. LUCKILY, people let us cut them to check our bags and to get through security and we RAN to the gate and got there as they were boarding the "B" group. WHEW!!!! I was FREAKING out on the car ride there. But Adam's GREAT driving got us there in time. THANKS AGAIN ADAM!

Total nerdy thing, but we had to do it. Plus, it was a really nice way to get a general over view of the city, so I had a good time. There have even been some famous people who rode it, so what do you think of that now dad? :)

After, we went home and got my dad and went out to lunch at a bar to watch the Cal football game. I still wasn't feeling too well and was really tired from medicine I took, so I intended on taking a 20 minute nap, but it actually lasted more like 2 and a half hours. Whoops! So, we stayed in that night and vegged and watched a movie, which actually ended up being fun and relaxing. And the next day I felt A LOT better, so that's good.

Sunday

Jam packed day because of my napping. First, we went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It was a GREAT museum and I particularly enjoyed their room on Impressionism. I got to see a lot of the paintings I studied, which is always exciting, including this one

I was sad that their Dutch and Flemish room was closed for renovations :( so I'll have to visit again sometime. They also had a GREAT Egyptian and Roman art collection which was pretty awesome to look at. I love Egyptian art and have an Egyptian hieroglyphic as a tattoo, so I enjoyed looking through everything

Next we went to the Museum of Science which was TOTALLY awesome and rivals the Exploratorium (although the Exploratorium has the Tactile Dome which is AMAZING). I don't have any pictures from here because I checked my purse so I didn't have to carry it around, so I'll have to snag Wendy's pictures sometime.

My dad and Chris especially liked an engineering section that let you build your own little sliding cars out of plastic, batteries and cloth. My dad tried to beat the slowest time possible (it was 7 or so seconds) and Chris tried to beat the fastest (1.10 seconds). My dad must have tried about a dozen times. He had the stickiest fabric, but his car would never even MOVE, so he had to keep making little adjustments to make it slide down the track, but not TOO fast. He kept on trying and he finally "WON." His car slid down the track at 10.85 seconds! You got to put your name on the board, so he put "Go A's" :) Meanwhile, Chris kept trying for the fastest and would get a couple hundreths of a second away and would make little adjustments here and there and then this 7 year old girl toddles up and puts her car on the track and she got 1.07! Shortly after, Chris gave up :)

After the museum closed we headed over to Quincy Market to hang out for an hour or two before our next tour, the Ghosts and Gravestones. We toured old burial grounds and heard spooky stories. It was pretty interesting. And Wendy screamed twice, so it was worth it :)

Monday

Rest day. My dad went to work in the morning and we hung out for most of the day because the concert was that night and we didn't want to be too tired.

For lunch we took the bus to Cambridge and ate at Mr. Bartley's, which is a Cambridge institution (it was voted Best Burgers by the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal). They have a TON of burgers and name them after famous people. Chris and Wendy had the Tom Brady Burger (although Chris later regretted not having the This Old House Burger) and I got the Joe Biden Burger. They were tasty and delicious. After, we walked around Cambridge (saw the Car Talk office)

and Harvard (I feel smarter already) and then headed home.

We vegged for about an hour and then my dad came home around 3:30. Although the concert started at 7, we were told that traffic and parking are a MESS heading out to Foxborough, so we left at about 4. Foxborough is only about 30 miles away, but it took us over an hour and a half to get there! And the town is TEENY TINY and the stadium is on a regular street, not off the freeway or anything, in fact, it's over 3 miles AWAY from a freeway, which makes for WONDERFUL traffic. We finally found the stadium and got parking about a mile away for $40! People were tailgating and hanging out and getting excited. We ate at the car and then headed over. I was BEYOND excited.

The Patriots Stadium was REALLY nice. I guess a perk of being out in the middle of nowhere was they could do anything they wanted.

We walked around a while, and then headed inside around 6:30.

The stadium was HUGE and they had a really cool stage set-up.

I LOVED this guy reading "Abstract Expressionism" before a concert, I had to email it to my Mills buddies (and the guy to the left's facial expression is pretty amazing too)

I found this really cool article of an interview with the U2 manager. The tour is called 360, and they wanted to build a stage so that from any angle in the stadium you could see the show (so there were no obstructed views) and also how they made ticket prices cheaper (10,000 tickets were $30) because times are hard and they wanted people to be able to afford tickets. Just another reason I love U2.

Snow Patrol opened the show and was on for about 30-45 minutes. I only knew one of their songs, but they were pretty good. I didn't like where we were standing though (I need more personal space) so I started getting frustrated and anxious and headed out of the crowd and moved to the back of the field. When Snow Patrol was done we hung out in the back for the hour or so till U2 came on. This is OUR album cover

About 15 minutes before we thought they'd come on (we heard 9) we moved to the back of the stage to a small area my dad scoped out. No one really knew it was open to people, so there weren't many people around. It was RIGHT next to the stage and we were like 10 feet away from the band when they came out!!!!

When the show started we moved to the side of the stage that people apparently didn't know you could stand at either. There was NO ONE there, we were SUPER close and there was a gate we could lean up against. So for the TWO HOUR set we had AWESOME seats. It was AMAZING. I had the GREATEST time!!!!!! I took SO MANY pictures and videos, but here are some I really liked.

None of my videos of the concert are uploading :( I'll have to try and figure out what's going on and then maybe post one or two later

It was the BEST TIME EVER!!!!!!!!

Not fun was the hour it took to get to the freeway after the show ended (SOOOO much traffic), 3 hours of sleep, waking up at 4:30 (eastern time) for our flight at 6, and then working yesterday afternoon. But, the trip was so fun and the concert was GREAT, so it was totally worth it

Now, we're back home and getting settled back in. Tomorrow I have an orientation for the Warriors for an equivalent internship that I did with the A's last year and Friday I get to work for ESPN at the De La Salle football game (I'm pretty excited/nervous. I got emailed the crewsheet and it's 5 pages of instructions, contact info, etc.)

9.17.2009

Apparently there is some cold that is going around and Chris got it earlier this week. He was out of commission for a few days, so that wasn't too fun. Then, it got passed on to me :( As a result, we haven't gotten much done on the house this week. I had to work the A's tonight, so between my sniffles, sneezing, headache, and long innings it wasn't too fun of a game, but at least I'm making money. There was a nice surprise when I came home however:

Chris put the bricks in place to keep the dirt and rocks of the flower bed from spilling out onto the patio. He'd never laid bricks before, and I thought he did a mighty fine job. Of course, Chris does a mighty fine job at just about everything.

Earlier today while I was at LHB he also made some progress on the deck

Now we just have to make and attach the stringers and then we're ready to lay the Trex down.

However, work on the house will be delayed a few days because tomorrow we're on our way to BOSTON! We'll make our first trip out to visit my dad and Wendy tomorrow at 8:10am. Chris is on the mend, and I think I'll feel a lot better in a day or two, so we should be able to have plenty adventures. We spent two days there on our baseball trip, so it will be nice to discover it a bit more.

The highlight of the trip will be the U2 concert on Monday.

I'm SOOOOO excited! U2 is my most favorite band EVER and I've wanted to go to a concert of their's for a LONG time, so I'm SUPER excited that we get to go while we're on the East Coast visiting. My dad, Chris, and I will make our way out to Foxborough (where the Patriots play) on Monday night to see them, from FIELD SEATS, woo-hoo! The only downer is our flight is at 6am the next day, boooo.

9.15.2009

With all the rain the last few days, Chris and I were reminded that we still needed to get rocks to put around the border of our vegetable garden so the dirt doesn't turn into mud (which it did). So last night we made a BIG trip to Home Depot and bought a lot of crap (including much needed Trex railing, more Trex for the side deck, a window for the bathroom, and bricks and stones for the garden bed). I wasn't really productive yesterday, so this morning I wanted to get something done before I left for work, so I decided to tackle the rock garden bed.

It started with 15 bags of various rocks (we got 10 bags of river rocks, 4 bags of lava rocks, and 1 bag of small pebbles to help fill the little gaps)

I leveled the dirt around the vegetable garden

Got the wheelbarrow and started mixing the bags

And the began shoveling the rocks out

It took a lot of work, but with some good music playing and the sun out it was a nice, pleasant and productive morning

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Hi! We're Chris and Meryl and we're renovating our Storybook home in Oakland, CA. Chris is the handy, knowledgeable builder and I'm his slightly inappropriate assistant. We've got 2 little girls who attempt to help as well - Zoe is 2 and Merritt arrived in June of 2015. Spurred by our love of renovating our own home we started a handyman, design and organizing business and now that we're both self employed we're busier than ever, but we love it!